Did The designers of this virus 'screw up' the sequencing of the amino acids necessary for successful human infections !

"What would the key indicators of an engineered virus look like ? The way It Started in Mexico and crossed over into America is the way an enemy would have planned it leaving no way to trace it's source .The biological engineering necessary to design a viral weapon are well known in Immunology
/Microbiology circles."

"When the genetic sequences of the mutant virus and original hybrid virus were compared, the only differences were five amino acid mutations, three on the surface, and two internally. Two of the surface mutations were determined to be solely responsible for supporting respiratory droplet transmission."

As of now, avian flu viruses can infect humans who have contact with birds, but these viruses tend not to transmit easily between humans. However, in research recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Associate Professor Daniel Perez from the University of Maryland showed that after reassortment with a human influenza virus, a process that usually takes place in intermediary species like pigs, an avian flu virus requires relatively few mutations to spread rapidly between mammals by respiratory droplets.

"This is similar to the method by which the current swine influenza strain likely formed," said Perez, program director of the University of Maryland-based Prevention and Control of Avian Influenza Coordinated Agricultural Project, AICAP. "The virus formed when avian, swine, and human-like viruses combined in a pig to make a new virus. After mutating to be able to spread by respiratory droplets and infect humans, it is now spreading between humans by sneezing and coughing."

When the genetic sequences of the mutant virus and original hybrid virus were compared, the only differences were five amino acid mutations, three on the surface, and two internally. Two of the surface mutations were determined to be solely responsible for supporting respiratory droplet transmission. Because so few mutations were necessary to make the hybrid H9N2 transmissible this way, they concluded that after an animal-human hybrid influenza virus forms in nature, a human pandemic of this virus is potentially just a few mutations away.

The Influenza A Virus.

"We do not know if the mutations we saw in the lab are the same that have made the H1N1 swine flu transmissible by respiratory droplets," Perez said. "We will be doing more research on the current swine flu strain to study its specific genetic mutations."

Perez found that one of the two of the genetic mutations in his lab strain that enabled respiratory transmission between mammals was on the tip of the HA surface protein, one of the sites where human antibodies created in response to current vaccines would bind.

"Because the binding site of the mutant virus is different from the virus upon which the vaccine is modeled, it may mean that current vaccine stocks would not be as effective against the H9N2 mutant strain as previously anticipated," said Perez. "We should keep this in mind when designing vaccines for an avian flu pandemic in humans."

However, scientists cannot predict what the actual mutations will look like if and when they occur in nature, or even which strain of avian influenza will mutate to infect mammals.

"This is just the tip of the iceberg," said Perez. "Many more studies have to be done to see which combinations of mutations cause this type of transmission before we can design the appropriate vaccines."

Perez will be talking this week with the NIH and the CDC to discuss his team's role in researching the current swine flu virus strain. Perez will likely do studies related to vaccine development, virus transmission between humans and animals, and the pathogenesis of the virus.

A virus vaccine is derived from the virus itself. The vaccine consists of virus components or killed viruses that mimic the presence of the virus without causing disease. These prime the body's immune system to recognize and fight against the virus. The immune system produces antibodies against the vaccine that remain in the system until they are needed. If that virus, or in some cases a closely similar one is later introduced into the system, those antibodies attach to viral particles and remove them before they have time to replicate, preventing or lessening symptoms of the virus.

The immune system also retains antibodies to a virus after being infected with it, so humans have general immunity to human strains of avian influenza strains. But humans do not generally have immunity to avian flu strains because they have not been infected by them before. The surface proteins are sufficiently different to escape the human immune response. Avian flu strains are therefore more dangerous for humans because the human immune system cannot recognize the virus or protect against it
http://www.physorg.com/news160159862.html

AHeneen

05-01-2009, 09:47 PM

Let the conspiracy theories begin...

djones520

05-01-2009, 09:48 PM

SARS!!!! OH NOES!!! Wait... what?

megimoo

05-03-2009, 10:37 AM

Let the conspiracy theories begin...
The evidence may be there .It is possible to engineer a specific virus and change the characteristics of a non fatal viral source by genetic engineering to a fatal virulent strain don't you think .Viral splicing has been done for many antiviral vaccines and the same technique is used to make a 'Satan Bug ' !Do a little reading in immunology in your spare time and open your mind .Here, try this one for a start . http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/braking-the-virus/

Not All idle thought is without merit.How would we know if and when we were attacked if a plague died out without killing a huge number of people?How would an enemy like militant Islam best attack America in the absence of nuclear weapons at least in the short term ? Biological engineering has been an principle college course for many years and Islam/Saudi Arabia has access to some of the best graduate PHD's in the field .Saadam had an advanced program in viral weapons and some of those are still floating around the mideast don't you think ?

The 'beauty' ,if thats the word, of using a virus like the 'Swine/pig flu' is that it has been circulating the world for years with new generations every few years and wouldn't be immediately suspect as an attack if it failed especially if it came from a third world country like Mexico .

Speedy

05-03-2009, 11:57 AM

I'm sure that somewhere in the Whitehouse a teleprompter is loaded up with an apology just in case this turns out to be an attack.

Teetop

05-03-2009, 12:23 PM

Viruses mutate. Just another reason for the Feds. to scare the people of America. :rolleyes:

[SIZE="3"]The evidence may be there .It is possible to engineer a specific virus and change the characteristics of a non fatal viral source by genetic engineering to a fatal virulent strain don't you think .Viral splicing has been done for many antiviral vaccines and the same technique is used to make a 'Satan Bug ' !Do a little reading in immunology in your spare time and open your mind .Here, try this one for a start . http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/braking-the-virus/

It's not that it isn't possible this is a bio attack, but I think pinning this on a bio attack is a bit absurd. While attacking Mexico first isn't out of the question in a bio attack, attacking a small village is. Any terrorist would have the sense to attack a major city first (ie. Mexico City). Not just that, but the CDC has already confirmed that this is only a mild strain and not very prone to spreading (only a couple hundred people worldwide?). Rushing to conspiracy theories right now is quite ridiculous, in my opinion.

megimoo

05-03-2009, 02:27 PM

Viruses mutate. Just another reason for the Feds. to scare the people of America. :rolleyes:

It's true that a virus will mutate as it propagates from one host to another.Natural viral evolution happens every few years in countries like China and other large non Muslim countries who breed pigs for food.

The Chinese keep pigs and Ducks in close proximity and there has long been a fear of a species jump between the two.It may have already happened but when it does if it does we are in for some problems .

We,the bioresearchers,don't have any idea what form a pig duck virus would take and how it would affect the human immune system .

Fort Detrick Maryland :BioWeapon and BioDefence Complex !
snip
The Fort Detrick expansion is but one phase of a multi-billion biotech buildup going forward in 11 agencies sparked by the unsolved, Oct., 2001, anthrax attacks on Congress that claimed five lives and sickened 17.

The attacks, and ensuing panic, led to passage of the BioShield Act of 2004. There is strong evidence, though, the attacks were not perpetrated by any foreign government or terrorist band but originated at Fort Detrick, the huge, supposedly super-safe biotechnology research center. Despite an intensive FBI investigation, no one has been charged with a crime.

Referring to the work undertaken at Fort Detrick, Mark Wheelis, Senior Lecturer in the Section of Microbiology of the University of California, Davis, told the Global Security Newswire(GNS) as far back as June 30, 2004, "This is absolutely without any question what one would do to develop an offensive biological weapons capability."

"We're going to develop new pathogens for various purposes. We're going to develop new ways of packaging them, new ways of disseminating them. We're going to harden them to environmental degradation. We'll be prepared to go offensive at the drop of a hat if we so desire," he told GNS.

Alan Pearson, director of the chemical and bioweapons control program at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation Studies in Washington, told the Baltimore Sun government scientists must tread carefully lest they wind up "in essence creating new threats that we're going to have to defend ourselves against."

Richard Novick, a New York University microbiology professor has stated, "I cannot envision any imaginable justification for changing the antigenicity of anthrax as a defensive measure." (That is, to create a new strain for which there is no known vaccine.)

Milton Leitenberg, a University of Maryland arms control advocate, told The Washington Post last July 30th, "If we saw others doing this kind of research (Fort Detrick), we would view it as an infringement of the bioweapons treaty. You can't go around the world yelling about Iranian and North Korean programs, about which we know very little, when we've got all this going on."

One alarming example of such Federally-funded research reported in the October, 2003, issue of "New Scientist," is the creation of "an extremely deadly form of mousepox, a relative of the smallpox virus, through genetic engineering."

The publication warned such research "brings closer the prospect of pox viruses that cause only mild infections in humans being turned into diseases lethal even to people who have been vaccinated."

Edward Hammond, director of The Sunshine Project of Austin, Tex., a non-profit working for transparency in biological research, said the recreation of the deadly 1918 "Spanish flu" germ that killed an estimated 40-million world-wide, means "the possibility of man-made disaster, either accidental or deliberate, has risen for the entire world."

Richard H. Ebright, a Rutgers University chemist who tracks arms control issues, told The Baltimore Sun the government's tenfold expansion of Biosafety Level-4 laboratories, such as those at Fort Detrick, raises the risk of accidents or the diversion of dangerous organisms. "If a worker in one of these facilities removes a single viral particle or a single cell, which cannot be detected or prevented, that single particle or cell can form the basis of an outbreak," he said.

The current expansion at Fort Detrick flows from a paper penned by President Bush. His Homeland Security Presidential Directive, HSPD-10, written April 28, 2004, states, "Among our many initiatives we are continuing to develop more forward-looking analyses, to include Red Teaming efforts, to understand new scientific trends that may be exploited by our adversaries to develop biological weapons and to help position intelligence collectors ahead of the problem."

Boyle said the Bush paper is "a smoking gun" fired at the BWC. "Red Teaming means that we actually have people out there on a Red Team plotting, planning, scheming and conspiring how to use biowarfare."

Boyle traces advocacy for aggressive biowarfare back to the neo-conservative Project for a New American Century(PNAC), whose members, including Paul Wolfowitz, later influenced President Geoge Bush's military and foreign policy. Before assuming his current post as World Bank head, Wolfowitz served Bush as deputy secretary of defense.

Before the anthrax attacks on Congress, PNAC advocated "advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool," Boyle wrote in "Biowarfare and Terrorism," (Clarity Press).

Biological warfare inolves the use of living organisms for military purposes. Such weapons can be viral, bacterial, and fungal, among other forms, and can be spread over a large geographic terrain by wind, water, insect, animal, or human transmission, according to Jeremy Rifkin, author of "The Biotech Century"(Penguin).snip